European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 6, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Stopping hard disk sabotage by Peter  new York times Here Are times when it makes Scanso so lock up your computer because the data Lorod in its hard disk Are Loo secret and valuable Tol Cavo unattended a hard disc is essentially in unlocked file Cabinos. And any sneak Riiel with a rudimentary knowledge of computers and a few floppy disks can make off Rich the con Lens without leaving a Ira col Iho crime Al least one of inc big defense aerospace company actually lugs its most sensitive pcs into a giant Salo Al night. For Moslo us. Though. The Standard preventive measure is to lock Iho door to the pc room and keep our fingers crossed plus development Olmi pitas Calif a submit Leafy of the quantum Cor maker 0 the popular hard card plug in braid Lor pcs is introducing a removable hard disk that will allow users la pull the Ondiro hard disk irom the machine in seconds taking inc valuable software and data on inc disk along. Then tha Shockproof disk about the size of a paperback Book can be stuffed into a briefcase Lobo taken Homo or slashed in a locked drawer or vault Lor safekeeping overnight. Removable hard disks Are not for everybody and inc once Premium makes lha plus passport an item Tor users with specific Security archiving or portability needs. Small businesses arc especially vulnerable to hard disk Security breaches because Villa company records arc often stored on a personal computer an employee seeking a Little leverage Al salary review time might just sneak a peek at payroll records a disgruntled worker might sabotage critical financial records or sell some confidential design information to a rival company. A burglar might make Oil Wilh a pc world a couple of Hundred Bucks on Tho Black Market not Reading thai the data on the hard disk is Worth a chief executive officer s Lansom. Removable disks Aro also convenient Tor Weka Hulics who want to Lave Ork Home at night rather than maintaining two sets of data including two sols of software the worker Ca Cairy rata irom one computer to another a spokesman Loi plus said that no Sotowa o piracy Laws arc broken As Long As the same user works Wilh the same software on the same machine and that the hard disk constitutes one computer even though to May reside in two different boxes there arc several other removable disk technologies already on the Market notably the Bernoulli Box from the Omega corp. Of Roy Utah. Such devices work much Liko a record and turntable you can change re coins but the Needle stays fixed when it is Lime Opul the plaster Back on. The grooves on the record must be precisely aligned once again or it won t play the new plus passport is unique in Hal the entire hard  pulls out. Heads and All not just Tho Platter. Technically that s a better system since the hard dish s Road write head and lha magnetic Media Are never separated and thus the alignment slays the same. Also. The risk of gulling debris in the mechanism is reduced that is critical because even particles of Cigar Elto smoke can seem like boulders in the precisely measured world of hard disks. Tha Bernoulli is immune to such Small scale contamination because the floating floppy disk is flexible and can avoid crashing into Tho boulders the passport. According to preliminary specifications runs faster in both its 20 Moga Bylo and 40-mcg.atayle configurations than the Lher removable technologies. The stood of a hard disk is measured in Access  the Lime in takes for the head to move from one rack of information to the next. The passport s Access time is 28 milliseconds or thousandths of a second. Thai s Quick even Lor a fixed disk but especially so for a removable disk the passport consists of a base housing a removable hard disk and an adapter card. The housing can be mounted internally into a Standard half height floppy disk Bay in the computer Chassis or exec really As a 2-Inch High platform thai sits Undi the Monitor. The removable hard dish itself is 1.25 inches thick. 4.8 inches wide and 7.7 inches Long and weighs 2.2 pounds. Hard disks Are notoriously delicate creatures but mis Onn has been Shock roofed to withstand moderately punishing movement such As Riding in a briefcase on the Long Island expressway. Tho disk is loaded and unloaded much As a video cassette is. Push a Button and it pops out. Ii you re working in the Middle of a file and have to make a Quick exit inc passport automatically puts away any open tiles Parks and locks the Heads and spins Down the Media Platter in 12 seconds Flat. The adapter card comes in two configurations one for Ino Liadi Liona pc it at bus Iho internal communications so Mclure used ism pc compatible Sand one Tor Iho new ism p5-2s. If you want to switch from the old Standard to the new one Al some time in inc Luli ire you need Only Swap Itie tent Dollci Board the base housing and the disks whom serves Aie Tho same the Caleb of course is the Price the removable disks also lend to remove a significant amount of Cash from your Wallet and passport is no exception in general removable disks Cost irom two to Lour limes As much As regular fixed disks. The 20-Megabyto passport will retail in the United slates Lort ,250, Law 40mb version Lor $ 1.450. That includes the adapter card the base housing and Tho removable hard disk ils Eif add $100 Lor the ps-2 versions which require More horsepower the base housing can accept either 20mb or 40ms disks or both. How to maintain a Var by Hans Fantel new York times leaning a Var has been widely regarded As a Mailer of damned if you do and damned if you Don t. Ii you did t clean the Var dust and accumulated shedding a from inc tape would Lake their loll h you did the cleaning action i Solf would scour the recorder s delicate innards unwilling to Settle Tor such a no win scenario Iho 3m co. Of St. Paul Minn Tho leading american manufacturer of recording tape has launched the Lisl systematic investigation Mlo the question of Var maintenance. Us project was prompted by an analysis of repair records showing Ida nine out of 10 video malfunctions can be traced to Plain dirt ii has Long been known that Vars Are highly vulnerable to household dust and particles of cigarette smoke. These Slon Elike granules Lodge in the narrow Gap of the recording head that imparts lha magnetic signal to the Lapo. This Gap is Only 1/150th the diameter of an average human hair half a Micron to to specific and the Crelore is easily clogged. Moreover the edges of the Gap must be As straight As the Edgo of the lines razor. If they Are nicked by an errant panicle of dust or smoke there will be a corresponding disturbance of the image being recorded or replayed. Moreover since the magnetic head spins Al a dizzying 1 boo rpm. The Speed of the Lape relative to the rotating head is roughly 80 mod. This gives the Impact of a Dusl Grain sufficient Force to make a relatively deep Dent in these delicate parts. Granted the effect of a single Micro collision of this kind Mill be imperceptible. But the damage is additive and in thousandfold repetition Over a period of months hero will be visible deterioration Otho picture noticeable As streaking Snow and toss of detail More important Tho decayed head can also damage tha Lape in self which is a Natter of serious concern in the Case of tapes containing singular and irreplaceable personal mementos. Aside from Impact and abrasion the recording head also suffers irom deposits of debris scraped irom inferior tapes Hal lend to shed their magnetic Coaling since Many of the prerecorded tapes bought or rented irom video stores Are of this kind Tho danger of head contamination is greatest from such sources since 3m makes a head cleaning cassette of its own thai retails in the United Stales for $12,95, us study cannot be regarded As disinterested and to avoid implications of Bias ii did not publish lest results for competing products. Concerning the various brands a 3m maintained a gentlemanly silence. Even so the report is valuable in that it provides the first precise measurements in matters in which vide philes had hitherto relied mainly on hearsay and hunches. Employing advanced methods of Micro measurements based on Electron microscopy 3m compared the head Wear caused by its cleaning cassette with the Wear caused by a a Bioty of regular recording tapes. The results were reassuring running a 3m head cleaner Ovar a typical Terrile recording drum removed about 0 25 Millionth of an Inch of Metal during the 30 seconds it usually lakes to Complete a cleaning operation with this Casselle according to widely accepted opinion More than 1,000 mall months of an Inch May be abraded from a recording head before it needs Lobo replaced. Besides with Heads Mado of harder alloys which Are often used in Home Vars. The Rale of abrasion was even less by about two thirds. Based in these findings 3m concludes that a 30-second cleaning with a scotch Brand head cleaner has an equivalent head Wear of Only six to 10 minutes of the average head Wear experienced with Blank recording  As a practical Rule Ono May conclude from this that vide philes playing lots of rental or prerecorded tapes that Are Likely to build up a Lair amount of magnetic debris on their recording Heads will probably prolong the file of their equipment by cleaning it with thc3m cassette about once a month. The underlying reasoning is that the Wear imposed by the cleaning action would to lass harmful than the Dirl accumulation. Viewers who do not play Many prerecorded tapes bul use their sch mainly Wilh High Grade tapes to make their own recordings Oil the air or from Cable May lengthen the interval Between cleaning until the need Tor it is made apparent by streaks and or airiness in the picture. The findings reported by 3m provide no guidance for other brands of head cleaners. The 3m cleaner differs irom others by using regular Lapo As a cleaning medium rather than a ribbon of Woven fabric. Tho Assumption is thai the cleaning Callon of the fabric cassettes is More aggressive and therefore Al least potentially More abrasive. Ii would be Linlor Matlove and helpful if comparative lest results in this Field were conducted by an Independent Agency. Paga 16 the stars and stripes Friday May 6,1968